Demons
by Moonfiregoldeyes
Summary: Sometimes the demons win and the angels are left to cry alone at the graveside of the fallen. *Warning! Possible character death, maybe yaoi if you squint *
1. Chapter 1

Sometimes the demons win and the angels are left to cry alone at the graveside of the fallen.

…

"Get up! Damn you Mustang! Get the fuck up!" Edward screamed into the elder's ear, trying to drag the man to his feet as he fought with his own injuries. The man gasped and coughed, fumbling with his arms, making it more difficult for the still smaller alchemist to get him to his feet.

It was just supposed to be a routine inspection.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Not again. Not to him.

He didn't want to lose someone else.

The rain kept coming down, falling with the rubble that used to be East Command. Edward hadn't seen the rest of Mustang's staff for the last ten minutes, ever since the first shell had gone off. They had gotten separated at the stairs, the wall blowing inward like it was made of sugar cubes. Edward had heard the screams, but had felt the arms around his waist yanking up and back, away from the crumbling stonework.

Mustang had saved him from taking a bullet too, shoving him away from the broken wall as the sharp reports of one of the new machine guns spat against the building. A fine mist of red had burst from his blue jacket and a sharp grunt came from the Colonel right before he had fallen on top of him. He had taken it into the right shoulder, into the meaty muscle and causing the arm connected to fall dead to his side.

He couldn't die. He still had work to do.

Still had things to accomplish.

"You hear me Mustang? You can't die because you ain't fucking finished! And I'm not doing your goddamned paperwork!" Edward panted, struggling with the awkward weight of his superior.

Another artillery shell hit the grounds, sending him reeling. He dropped his human sandbag and fell onto his flesh leg, yelping as jagged rock cut through skin. The ceiling shook, more chunks of plaster and stone falling around them. Fighting to his hands and knees, he managed to shield the fallen man's head and back with his own as he fought to breath through the dust clogged air.

_No more. God please, if you're real, no more. Make it stop. _

His alchemy wouldn't help. Any support he took away from the rest of the building to fix the broken parts would cause a full collapse. Any earth or matter alchemy he tried would be just as bad. "Fuck bastard! I'm close range! Why aren't you the fuck awake so you can smoke the assholes?" He snarled. Rolling Mustang onto his back, he stumbled through a few 'it's oks' and 'shhs' as he tried to assess the damage that had been done as the man writhed in pain. Sweat streaked through the dirt that marred the man's pale skin, washing away the crimson blood that had splattered and leaked from his shoulder.

It was still bleeding. The bullet had torn through him without even slowing. Clapping his hands, Edward used Mustang's thick great coat and military jacket to bind the wound. Three items fell from the pockets, having been excluded unknowingly from the blonde's transmutation. A silver pocket watch and a pair of pyrotech gloves.

Could he use them? Fire alchemy had never been a strong suit for the prodigy. He understood the basics, understood the theory. But he was too volatile in his usage of alchemy to fine tune the air currents and hydrogen oxygen ratio to control the flame. He could do more harm than good if he got it wrong. He'd spent weeks studying with the bastard before he admitted that it just wasn't something he could do. The jerk had ruffled his hair and told him that if he could then no one would be safe. _It was best to remain a mere mortal,_ Mustang had said, _then to take on the task of godhood_.

_But if I had that power, I could save him. Save the rest. Fuck, I'm weak._

"Full…Metal." A pained gasp of his name snapped his attention to the present.

Whiplash was a mild term for the abuse to his neck. Crouching over his superior, Edward cradled one cheek with his flesh hand so that Mustang could meet his eyes without straining his shoulder or chest. "Finally! I thought I'd have to drag your ass around for the rest of the day lazy bastard."

"Funny." The sarcasm was weak, and the comeback was worse, but at least the jackass was talking. The smirk wasn't up to par, but he'd have time to work up to it. "Gloves."

"Here." Edward snatched them up, tried to pass them off. They were refused, the working hand of the Flame Alchemist shaky but still functional pushing them back.

"Can't. You do it." The words were taking their toll on the man, but without the luxury of a medic and time Edward couldn't tell if the bastard was in the actual condition to be speaking.

"But—the last time I tried I nearly blew up your office! Who's to say this won't be worse? Fucking hell, the amount of explosives could blow us all to hell before I finishing snapping!"

"Faith Edo. Like…automail. Extension." Mustang's eyes fluttered for a moment before the air that his lungs had been forcing in and out of his body caught in his throat and painful hacks rattled his frame. After several nerve racking moments in which Edward wondered if he was going to continue breathing or not. "Be a god."

Lessons flooded his mind, and Edward found himself staring at the red arrays on the gloves, the world pin pointing down on them as sound faded back. "But there is no god." The words came too late for the Flame Alchemist to respond to as he slipped into pain free oblivion, but the last clinging thought he had was that if any mortal could succeed in rectifying the youth's belief it would be Edward Elric.

…

**A/N: Should I continue?**


	2. Divine Powers Roy's POV

Whatever divine power that had the magnifying glass loved to point it at his little feelers. A routine inspection of Eastern Command had turned into a war zone as a small terrorist group waged a full scale attack against the building. Roy figured that if he managed to make it out of here intact he'd have to figure out who had fucked up so bad as to allow the rebel group to get in range with weapons of this scale. They should have been stopped blocks away.

The first shell took out his staff, taking away his support in one fatal swoop. The sickening chorus of screams and explosions rattled his ribcage as he grabbed the body closest to him. After forcing the struggling form away from the crumbling stairs, he realized that he had grabbed the small blonde on chance.

He dragged Edward up against the corner, watching the gold eyes round in terror. He'd never been in an actual war, had never hunkered down in a ditch waiting for the explosions to stop long enough to get to safety or to allow backup to save whoever was left. The childlike horror he was nurturing in his mind would cause more trouble if Roy didn't snap him out of it. Fullmetal would work better with orders until his brain kicked in. He might not have been in a war, but he's seen enough small scale battles to know how to handle himself in one.

After taking a breath or two to steady himself, he reached across to grab one thin shaking shoulder, wincing as the blonde tried to dislodge his grasp with a metal elbow. "Get a hold of yourself Fullmetal, now is not the time to be panicking."

The shrimp nodded jerkily, trying to control his breathing as he watched his commanding officer do the same. After a few seconds, for Roy really couldn't give him any more, Roy went to pass on the half-formed plan that he had came up with, which wasn't much.

Find whoever was attacking the building, and then beat the shit out of them. Not hard. And if they could find the rest of the gang while they were at it, big plus.

Simple plans were the best for inexperienced soldiers. And Fullmetal was the worst kind of…

A sharp rattling noise interrupted the alchemist's thoughts, and as he tried to place the increasingly loud and repetitive sound, the wall to the left of him began to splinter even more. Small holes blew inward, accompanied by puffs of white dust. A machine gun, they had a _fucking_ machine gun!

Fullmetal had frozen, obviously not realizing what the weapon was capable of or that it was even a weapon. Snarling, Roy grabbed him by the shoulders, twisting the pair so that the boy was in front of him. Throwing them away from the wall, he had the fleeting recollection of Maes doing the same thing to him after a raid had gone bad. They hadn't had guns of this caliber then, but Roy had froze up just the same.

Something shoved him hard in the right shoulder. If he had been on even ground, and had not been contending with Fullmetal, Roy might have been able to remain standing. But, as circumstances as they were, he toppled forward onto the younger man, ending up in undignified heap seconds before the realization, along with the pain, hit him.

He'd been shot.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to muster up what little inner strength he had left at this point to contain the cries of pain that were clawing in his chest. His arm became a useless hunk of meat as it clumped to the ground.

Screaming was something the Flame alchemist tried to prevent at all costs. And now, he was a beggar made as he cried hoarsely into his subordinate's ear. He'd never been shot before. Stabbed, burned, beaten; but never shot. It was amazingly gruesome how much this hurt more than anything else he could remember. He felt like his whole damn arm was about to fall off. The tearing wasn't clean or sanitary, jagged bits of flesh gapping outward from his jacket that was starting to turn a sickening shade of dark maroon.

He blanked out, he supposed. Surely he had, with the pain in the forefront of his mind he didn't even register being pulled to his feet. But as Fullmetal hollered into his ear at the top of his lungs, the simple words lost on him as the remaining blood that had stayed inside his body pounding in his ears. Something about a bastard and paperwork.

He'd much rather be doing paperwork now. Oh god, would he rather be doing his paperwork now.

His feet left him again, and the pain he thought impassable gained whole new levels as he hit the ground. Things were pattering against his face and chest, large solid things.

Fear he didn't have. Oddly, a sudden calm had came over him, even as his thoughts remained frantic. He couldn't leave his men, couldn't let them fall to the other officers. Not out of greed, as they were good men that excelled in whatever use they had. No, he didn't want them to be used as canon fodder for the higher ups.

Breda, his strategist, needed someone to goad him into action. He was not a man of action on his own, but a man to have at your back none the less.

Falman, damn him, would be lost in the shuffle along with Fuery. Falman might adjust if he got placed in another office, but Fuery didn't stand a chance. The puppyish man would be chewed and spat out if another commander got a hold of him.

Havoc. Stupid chain smoker. Lazy and watch full, he defiantly saw too much to just be forgotten.

Hawkeye. She needed someone to watch over. She was too maternal to just be shoved off into the front lines like any good sniper should have been. But she needed watching, just like the Elrics.

Alphonse, he needed his brother to get his body back. The bright, cheerful little boy in the wrong body. Who never did wrong or saw it. Too trustful.

Edward. God, he couldn't leave the pest to roam free. Central wouldn't survive the week. And no one else would allow the young male the leash he did. If anyone found out about the Elrics, they would never see sunlight again.

The sudden stony precipitation stopped, and the light darkened above him. Panting, gasps of pain littered his as the ground shook. What was happening now?

More pain, and he couldn't help but struggle against the well meaning hands that fought with his clothes and shoulder. One burned his skin while the other chilled, and a gentle prodding at his wound made him arch. _No more, please, no more. It hurts too much…_

The pain dulled after an eternity of it. Fighting his way upward, he heard sobbing.

Taking in a breath, having to choke on dirt and blood to do so, he got his eyes open to see who was crying. A muzzy picture of Fullmetal came into view and he frowned. He was the only one he could see...but to think that the man was crying over Roy was ludicrous.

"Full…Metal." The title nearly took all of his strength to produce and sent his head swimming.

"Finally!" A tear stained face, it had been Edward crying over him then, and a flesh hand to his cheek came into his small, throbbing world. "I thought I'd have to drag your ass around for the rest of the day lazy bastard!" The words were both fearful and relieved. Gold eyes shimmered behind a curtain of water.

"Funny." Even though he wanted to make a better remark, he found whatever words he possessed free of his mind. Instead, he worked his mouth into an upward curve and tried to move one arm. No go. "Gloves?"

Scrambling, and a frantic Edward tried to shove them into his left hand. "Here." Roy shoved them back. He didn't have the strength to do much more.

"Can't. You…do it."

"But!—The last time I tried I nearly blew up your office!" He wanted very much to say that this wouldn't be the worst thing to happen at a time like this. "Who's to say this won't be worse? Fucking hell, the amount of explosives could blow us to hell before I finish snapping!"

Ah, good point.

"Faith Edo. Like…automail. Extension." The nickname slipped off his tongue without any prodding and he didn't try to fight it back as more pain edged out the strength had kept. Breathing became a forgotten art as his body rebelled against the simple task. Finally, he managed to get out three more words before surrendering. "Be a god."

"But there is no god." The words came too late for the Flame Alchemist to respond to as he slipped into pain free oblivion, but the last clinging thought he had was that if any mortal could succeed in rectifying the youth's belief it would be Edward Elric.


End file.
